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La Matricianella has been open for business since 1957, and seemingly, only
“good business” at that. The place is always packed, lunch and dinner. It never
ceases to amaze me just how crammed full of people the restaurant’s three
smallish rooms can be. Reserving your table isn’t just recommended, it is
essential.

Rigatoni with oxtail stew sauce

The brother and sister team, Grazia and Giacomo Lo Bianco, have created a
jewel, neatly tucked away on a small street a stone’s throw away from piazza
San Lorenzo in Lucina, a very pretty, pedestrian-only square in the middle of
the city’s historic center. La Matricianella is one of Rome’s three best
addresses at which to try authentic Roman cuisine. The three chefs who man the
stoves (Giovanni Fabbrotti, Lorenzo Vannucchi, and Stefano Timi), rarely have bad
days that might leave you disappointed. The professional, no nonsense waiters
are just as an important part of the restaurant’s success. For example,
Giovanni Felici, who has waited on me for something like 80% of the times I
have been at Matricianella in my lifetime (which is a lot of times) is as much
of a fixture here as are the gingham check tablecloths, the rather tightly spaced
tables (frankly, too tightly), the old photographs on the walls, and the
reassuring menu full of old reliables (in fact, La Matricianella also has an
outside narrow seating area; so, weather permitting, one can choose to sit
outside in just as cramped quarters as on the inside).

Spaghetti cacio e pepe

Traditions and charming habits
harkening to bygone days happily persist, like eating specific dishes on set
days. For example, the quinto quarto (fifth
quarter) on Wednesdays, gnocchi on Thursdays, baccalà on Fridays and tripe on Saturdays. In fact, the quinto quarto dishes are available all
the time at Matricianella. The term quinto
quarto refers to those poor meat cuts or animal parts, like sweetbreads,
tripe and oxtail, that Rome’s richer patrician families, Popes and princes
never bothered to eat, cuts that were effectively non-existent for supposedly
refined palates for whom money was no object. Hence the ‘fifth quarter’
namesake: clearly, there is no fifth quarter, it doesn’t exist, just as it
didn’t ‘exist’ for the wealthy. Nevertheless, Rome’s poor learned to cook these
lowly, underappreciated ingredients in ingenious, delicious ways, and we are
all luckier for it.

Hunter’s style milk fed
lamb

The food at La Matricianella is outstanding. Foodies know that some of Rome’s
best fritti are to be had here. The
pastas are excellent too: of Rome’s holy trinity of pasta - amatriciana, carbonara and cacio e pepe -
my vote for Matricianella’s best goes to the first of that trio (but as good as
they are, none can claim the title of Rome’s best). Visitors must not miss out
on Matricianella’s artichoke preparations (both the deep-fried carciofi alla Giudea and the pennyroyal-accented
carciofi alla romana are amongst the
finest the city has to offer) and the many abbacchio
dishes (abbacchio is suckling lamb
that had never touched a blade of grass before reaching the big pasture in the
sky) that are Roman staples. On this night, my abbacchio alla cacciatora is splendid (though I always come away
thinking this dish could use a drop or two more of white vinegar), the abbacchio scottadito (grilled lamb ribs)
absolutely perfect (moist and crisp) and the melt in your mouth abbacchio al forno is exactly what every
oven-baked lamb ought to be like.

Grilled milk-fed lamb
ribs

La Matricianella boasts not one but two wine lists: the first, a
normal-sized intelligently designed list dedicated only to the little known but
at times surprisingly good wines of Lazio, and a second, truly heavy,
monumental tome filled with the names of Italy’s best whites and reds. As
always in Italy, older vintages are few and far between (by this standard
alone, roughly 60% of Italy’s two and three Michelin star restaurants should each
be demoted by at least one star) but there’s not too many ways around this, as
Italians like to drink their wines on the young side and storage space in all
too cramped Italy is scarce. At least at Matricianella you have a good number
of choices of all the usual suspects (Barolo, Brunello, Amarone) going back to
the 90s.

Oven-roasted milk fed
lamb with potatoes

This night out, I passed on wine and food matching altogether, wanting
to just have fun with some older, by-now ready to drink wines. I have had the 1999 Roberto Voerzio Barolo La Serra
countless times over the years, and have always felt it was one of his most
successful 1999s, which for my taste were initially too chunky and ripe, and
short on nuance. However, this La Serra appears to be finally emerging from its
opulent persona, showing greater finesse than it did in the past, and offering nuances
of faded violets, tar and red cherry, with La Serra’s typically assertive
tannins providing welcome backbone. And though an initial strong note of
reduction diminishes but doesn’t really dissipate completely even by dinner’s
end (three hours later), overall I’d say this is the best showing of this wine
I have memory of.

The 1995 Gaja Barolo
Sperss is more graceful but less powerful than the La Serra, offering a
dainty mouthfeel and noteworthy grace, if not mindboggling concentration of its
sour red cherry and berry aromas and flavors. Vibrant acidity makes this an
excellent food wine, though. The winner of the night turned out to be the
amazing 1995 Quintarelli Amarone della
Valpolicella Riserva, a remarkably balanced, harmonious, completely dry red
characterized by subtle air-dried red fruit and sweet spice notes and extremely
suave, noble tannins. It is completely devoid of funky notes or volatile
acidity and lingers on the palate for hours; it’s about as beautiful an Amarone
as I have drunk in a very long time. This big wine (16.5% alcohol) is at once
powerful yet light on its feet, and how this brooding giant manages such a neat
trick is a testament to the incredible talent of Giuseppe Quintarelli. It’s also
a wine that showcases just how great classically dry reds made with air-dried
grapes can be when in the hands of a true master.